2023, running towards spring-inventory and prospect of China’s sports goods industry

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, January 16th, question: 2023, running towards spring-inventory and prospect of China’s sporting goods industry

Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Li, lin deleng

looked back at the sporting goods industry and sports industry at the beginning of the year. Roger, vice chairman and secretary general of China sports goods industry federation (hereinafter referred to as “Federation”), thought that the epidemic had a great impact, but looking forward to the future, he is full of confidence in the future of the industry.

Recently, the federation held a media briefing on the year-end inventory of the industry. Roger reviewed the achievements and challenges of the federation’s substantive reform in the past five years, and also made a judgment and analysis on the development of the sports industry. He believes that in view of the overall resilience and flexibility of China’s economy, the public’s awareness of improving immunity and the recovery of competition activities after the optimization and adjustment of epidemic prevention and control policies, sports and industry will also accelerate to the coming spring.

Review: “National tide” has led the industry to show resilience

In the past 2022, the epidemic has continued, the global economic recovery is insufficient, and the decline of the external demand market has greatly impacted the industry. Roger revealed that the federation visited and learned that the export of individual enterprises dropped to 1/3 of the original, but in the three years of the epidemic, the impact on the domestic sports manufacturing industry was overall controllable.

According to the statistics of the Federation, the total market value of 42 listed companies in China’s sports industry exceeded the trillion mark for the first time at the end of 2021, an increase of more than 30% over the previous year, which established confidence for the industry in an uncertain environment. However, in the early 2022 Winter Olympics and the World Cup at the end of the year, the enthusiasm for mass sports is undoubtedly a big benefit. At the same time, based on the recognition and confidence of the new generation of consumer groups for the quality of Chinese cultural IP and domestic goods, the “national tide of sports” showed strong momentum. Anta surpassed Nike for the first time and ranked first in the mainland market share. This year’s “Double Eleven”, among the 102 brands with a turnover of over 100 million in the first hour on Tmall platform, domestic brands account for more than half, and most of them have obvious performance growth compared with last year. Various data show that the long-term value of the national tide of sports is still stable.

“The resilience of Chinese sporting goods enterprises is very strong. In the case of declining exports, many enterprises have turned to open up the domestic market and their ability to tap potential demand has been greatly enhanced.” Roger believes that this is consistent with the requirement of expanding domestic demand at the Central Economic Work Conference.

The Frisbee “niche” sports such as Internet celebrity, camping, cycling, and Lu Chong that emerged last year deserve attention. This shows that sports consumption has not disappeared due to the epidemic, but the scene has shifted. This is not only a new business opportunity, but also shows that the new demand for domestic sports consumption still needs to be further explored.

In addition, the Federation continues to observe and find that the scale of sports Government procurement in the whole year is on the rise, mostly from sports and education systems, and the procurement projects of rural sports facilities, sports parks and fitness trails have increased, it shows the government’s deployment in plus-sized investment and stimulating domestic demand.

Outlook: the acceleration of the event’s return to Rebound

at the end of last month, the tens of thousands of people shouting from Chengdu Fenghuangshan Sports Park professional football stadium was moving and showed the love and strength of sports. In the last three rounds of the Chinese Super League, Chengdu Rongcheng fought here. There were 31518 fans in the first battle, and the 34th round created a season record of 37928 people.

Roger believes that the reappearance of fan atmosphere means the reappearance of sports market vitality. “Sports consumption is very special. First of all, once sports habits are formed, it is difficult to disappear and their consumption will continue. At the same time, sports consumption is a long chain, from improving sports skills to improving hardware equipment, from self-training to participating in competitions, from participating in competitions to watching competitions, from competitions to performances, driving consumption in all aspects and constantly moving towards higher levels.”

Among them, the pulling effect of the event is undoubtedly the most obvious. The State General Administration of Sports proposed in the middle of last year that all competitions should be handled. In 2023, with the optimization of epidemic prevention and control policies, various domestic competitions and activities will return to a large area.

As far as the international competition is concerned, Hangzhou Asian Games and Chengdu Universiade will be held in 2023, and ATP Shanghai Masters will also be staged as scheduled. In domestic competitions, apart from the normalization of league matches such as Super League and CBA, the most lively one will undoubtedly be the road running with a large population. According to incomplete statistics, hundreds of marathon plans have returned.

Considering the consensus on improving immunity brought by the epidemic, the public’s enthusiasm for sports interrupted by the epidemic in the past three years is expected to break out in an all-round way.

The State General Administration of Sports proposed that during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, more than 1,000 sports parks should be built, rebuilt and expanded, and at the same time, the management of the allocation and construction of fitness equipment for all the people should be strengthened. All regions have undertaken many tasks. The strong spillover effect of sports infrastructure construction will also drive many related industries.

Track: going out into campus

The popularity of online fitness on Will Liu has become a phenomenon-level event not limited to sports circles last year. It can be seen that home fitness is a hot direction, behind which is the great potential of online fitness market.

But Roger believes that sports itself has a strong offline social attribute and has been restricted by the epidemic in the past three years. However, more people should leave their homes this year, so outdoor sports, sports tourism cannot be ignored.

When talking about the possible “golden track”, he introduced that the “research report on mass fitness behavior and consumption” released by the Federation for the third consecutive year mentioned two points, the first is the significant growth of light sports groups, and the second is the obvious trend of sports scenes extending to the outdoors, such as Frisbee of the explosive fire, camping and cycling. “I believe that on the one hand, the popularity of minority and emerging outdoor sports will continue, on the other hand, the consumption of mass sports will sink more and more, becoming the lifestyle of more people. These changes will promote the outdoor industry to continue to be hot.”

Reuters and other media reported that the news of China’s orderly resumption of citizens’ outbound tourism attracted wide attention from all countries. As the Spring Festival holiday approaches, tourism-related industries around the world are looking forward to the arrival of Chinese tourists.

“Domestic should also pay attention to the trend of sports tourism.” Roger noticed that many people around had made travel plans, “there are many people who go skiing, children who attend winter camp, and those who plan to go to Hainan and run horses. The sports industry should actively look for the combination points related to tourism.”

In addition, the two major trends of intelligent fitness equipment and youth sports mentioned in the research report on mass fitness behavior and consumption will also become an important force point in the sports goods industry.

Roger especially emphasized that in sports consumption, youth groups cannot be ignored. The integration of sports and education and the “double reduction” policy have made time for teenagers to carry out sports. Whether it is after-school service or all kinds of sports training in the society, the majority of teenagers have great consumption potential. If this is not obvious due to the epidemic in 2022, it is expected to be fully released in 2023.

Specifically speaking of the project, among the light sports groups with significant growth, the top ones are running, walking, table tennis, etc. These sports have a large population base and the largest market. The data of e-commerce festivals such as “Double Eleven” support this point.

Federation: Expanding Boundaries to build bridges

as the first unit of the State General Administration of Sports to carry out the entity reform of the association, the multi-dimensional and multi-level reform of the federation since the entity reform in 2017 has been widely concerned and recognized. Roger said that in the past five years, the federation has been thinking about how to build a better platform for the industry from the perspective of the market and implement the work goal of “serving the government, the service industry and the service enterprise” from the beginning to the end.

For all-round service industries and member enterprises, the federation has set up and added working platforms such as standardization, certification, information service and theoretical research, gradually forming “one ecology, two drivers, the architecture of three tools and multiple brand projects. That is, the two-line parallel organizational ecology of the Secretariat and various professional committees, the dual drive provided by sports fairs and standardization for enterprises from production to sales, the three service tools of information, think tanks and publicity, sports fairs, sports Service Association, China Sports Industry Summit, standard committee TC291, China Sports Federation public welfare fund, China Sports Federation certification and other brand projects guiding the development of the industry. After five years of exploration, the service capability of the federation has been continuously improved and the service boundary has been continuously expanded.

Roger introduced that in order to achieve effective service, they proposed to break through the boundary of sporting goods industry, “to take the whole society as the service object, we will enter wherever the products of member enterprises are sold”.

In the past five years, the bridge role of the federation has become more distinct. “The Federation strives to become a bridge between the government and the market, between the domestic and foreign markets, and to help sporting goods enterprises to enter the international market, initially realizing the original intention of the reform.” He said.

This year is the first year to fully implement the Party’s 20th spirit. The Central Economic Work Conference put forward the requirements of “focusing on expanding domestic demand” and “giving priority to restoring and expanding consumption. Roger believes that sports are promising among them. “I believe that sports goods industry and sports industry will work well with many industries. The federation will continue to provide good services to help the construction of sports power and healthy China.”